SPO-KHELO-ATHLETICS

Andhra Pradesh's Bharat Yadav and

Maharashtras Karan Hegiste will offer a taste of the high

level of competition in athletics at the Khelo India Youth

Games here, which will begin from Thursday.

Expected to be compete for the blue riband 100 m gold

in the Under-17 section, the sprinters will be among the first

athletes to take to the track.

Then there are athletes like Satara's hammer thrower,

Sneha Jadhav, who won the Junior Nationals last year, and

Mumbai-based shot putter Poorna Raorane, who also won in

junior nationals held at Ranchi.

"I missed the junior nationals in Ranchi with an

injury but am well prepared to win here," Bharat was quoted as

saying in a media release issued Wednesday.

With some doubt about national junior champion Nisar

Ahmed's participation in the Under-21 section, the battle

between Rahul Sharma (Uttar Pradesh) and Abhinav Chalangode

(Kerala) will be an interesting one considering that they

claimed the lesser medals behind the Delhi lad in Ranchi.

The sprint heats will herald the track and field

competition in which more than 600 athletes from 29 states and

seven Union Territories will bid to grab the spotlight.

The biggest of the draws, though could be two-time

Asian junior 400m champion Jisna Mathew (Kerala),

Uttarakhands Anu Kumar and Maharashtras Tai Bamhane.

Of course, there are others like 19-year-old hammer

thrower Sneha Jadhav, who represented India in the World

School Games 2016 in Turkey and in the Youth Asian Games 2017

in Bangkok.

Mumbai-based shot putter Poorna Raorane, who won

gold in Ranchi with a final effort of 15.30m to slip past

Punjabs Parmjot Kaur, said she was ready to repeat her feat.

Poorna finished fourth in the World School Games in

Turkey.